


Judas

by MumblingSage



Series: A witch or a saint [1]
Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Canon Compliant, Consent, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Acephobia, Light Dom/sub, Pegging, Pre-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Unreliable Narrator, Waxplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:40:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2813966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MumblingSage/pseuds/MumblingSage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Studying an old photograph forms just a beginning; she needs memories to form a link. Not necessarily pleasant, but stronger, powerful enough to cement a metaphysical bond. That’s the important thing. For Martina’s sake, Anne Marie can relive a little awkwardness. When she looks at it that way, maybe it’s lucky she and John Constantine have been so...intimate.<br/>Yes, they shagged. Once. Although she’s not sure how much of it counted as shagging. The definition doesn’t matter, not for this. It never mattered to her. She’s still not sure if it mattered to John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Judas

_"SORCERY and sanctity,” said Ambrose, “these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life._

_“…Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous importance to the 'sin' of meddling with our pockets (and our wives) that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin._

_"You astonish me," said Cotgrave. "I had never thought of that. If that is really so, one must turn everything upside down. Then the essence of sin really is--"_

_"In the taking of heaven by storm, it seems to me," said Ambrose._

_-Arthur Machen, foreword to ‘The White People’_

It takes more than a photograph to trigger bilocation.

It’s not that the projection is particularly complicated, or even particularly audacious by her standards. Whether or not it’s a miracle would be splitting hairs—Catholic mysticism and occultism have more than enough in common. Both involve asking the universe to bend its rules for you.

When Anne Marie comes down to it, nothing about becoming a nun has changed much. Except the uniform—no more knee-high boots and bare midriffs, she thinks ruefully, tracing the image of her legs from years ago. And then she thinks, more ruefully still: the celibacy hasn’t changed much, either.

Much. It isn’t _nothing_.

But studying the photograph forms just a beginning; to reach her goal requires a certain intensity of focus that runs deeper. Anne Marie closes her eyes until she sees blackness behind them, shutting out the dim candlelight and the plain convent cell. Her mind isn’t so easily made blank. That’s all right, though. She needs memories to form a link—to find the man she’d last heard had just got out of Ravenscar asylum, and who, the last time they’d been in a room together, she’d threatened to see dead.

That wouldn’t be a helpful memory to draw on now. But she has others. Not necessarily any more pleasant, but stronger, powerful enough to cement a metaphysical bond. That’s the important thing. For Martina’s sake, and for her son who might still be alive, Anne Marie can relive a little awkwardness. When she looks at it that way, maybe it’s lucky she and John Constantine have been so...intimate.

Yes, they shagged. Once. Although she’s not sure how much of it counted as shagging. The definition doesn’t matter, not for this. It never mattered to her. She’s still not sure if it mattered to John. 

She suspects John slept with every one of them, either before her or in the short time between her bed and Newcastle. Maybe not Chas, because he was a married man, but who knew how long that would last. Not that John couldn’t have a friendship without sex. He just so rarely didn’t. And ironically, it was the one aspect of his life that sometimes mirrored functional human behavior. He seemed to respect his boyfriends, girlfriends, the elfin person he’d introduced Anne Marie to at a bar one night who turned out to be neither, and all the one-night stands. Even for that last group, he’d remember names for months and, rumor reported, cooked truly horrible breakfasts. Anne Marie had no idea where he’d learned it from. Not her. In fact she probably could have learned a lot from him, if she’d tried.

She should have. She should have shagged him earlier and a lot more often and they should have learned a lot more about the potential of prostate stimulation and multiple orgasms rather than Ecclesiastical Latin (to say nothing of the scroll they had to get translated from Bohairic) and dowsing rods and the identity behind that strew of big cat’s pawmarks across a decaying estate. Maybe she could have learned more about managing a functional sex life. Any dysfunction, any unhealthiness between the two of them—as of course there was—hadn’t all been John’s fault.

But she’s getting ahead of herself.

She doesn’t need to. Keeping her eyes closed, she focuses on a memory of perfect synchronization, perfect intimacy. Because there had been times that evening when it did feel perfect.

She remembers him in candlelight, the close, hot glow of it surrounding them as he lay braced on one elbow and she leaned over him, her hand at the nape of his neck, fingers in his hair. She kept pulling back to look at him between kisses. The mood lighting wasn’t set up to be romantic. They’d been wrapping up a ritual—she no longer remembers which, or whether it was the real thing or just a practice run. It was at her place, and she’d shelved the books, cleared away most of the artifacts except for the candles. He had been about to leave—she’d leaned into kiss him goodbye—and then he hadn’t left, and they’d moved from the door to the center of the room again. Sooner or later she’d brought him to the floor.

If Anne Marie could do one thing, it was kiss. She could do it downright aggressively. She liked to be in control of things, which explained too much, really. Sex was supposed to be about letting go, but if she couldn’t do that at least she wouldn’t be shy. That night, with John, she felt responsible—she always did around the boy; she was always the one to lead him in everything else. And he seemed to want to be led, almost manhandled by her, opening his mouth as her tongue pressed in, touching her with one hand stroking her side, an arm wrapped around her waist. Supportive, she thought. Like furniture.

Why did she always have to make things so mechanical? It was as if she couldn’t transcend flesh, not in this fleshiest of experiences, even though everyone and their not-so-maiden-aunts seemed to find it effortless. And yet she was nobody’s bloody maiden aunt, either, and she could at least be competent at the mechanics.

When she licked John’s upper lip, he made a sound that suggested he might find her a little more than competent.

She remembers undressing him, his shoulders rolling beneath her palms to shrug off his jacket, her knuckles brushing his warm stomach as she rolled up that cheap cotton T-shirt. Once it was over his head, Anne Marie retraced her touch in reverse, this time letting her nails trail, and proved her suspicion that John was at least a little ticklish. His chest hitched, and his lips were tugging with the effort to hold back what was either laughter or a plea for her to stop. Since it was a plea he would never actually voice, and he could catch her hands if he wanted, she helped him keep quiet with another kiss. His mouth was temptingly soft, and tasted far better than any chain smoker’s had a right to.

Anne Marie kept her fingers running over his now-bare chest, petting the wiry hair there. She wasn’t used to body hair, and here it was a shock of carnal reality. But not an unpleasant one, really. He was still caught between writhing under her touch and struggling not to writhe, and being able to spark that kind of reaction was…very good.

And as mechanical as it had been to think of him as furniture, the thought of _using_ him like that was one she liked perhaps a little too much.  Ever the control freak.

That was one of the reasons which made her reach for a burning taper and—carefully shielding the ends of his hair with her hand—upend it along his shoulders. Nothing shows off control like a bit of erotic torture. And it wasn’t pure torture; his breath hitched again, sharper this time, and he didn’t hold back an appreciative sound, part moan, part laughter, part curse. Glancing at the crotch of his jeans, she definitely saw something stir there. It settled another of her suspicions about John, which was another motive for dribbling more hot wax along the top of his spine.

All that impact—he was wiggling again, turning his back to her, and she hooked her arm under his chest to support his sudden weight— _all that_ , even while she kept a certain distance. Pain was easier to inflict than pleasure. Sometimes that was a good thing.

Holding the candle level with her face, with some cooling distance before it touched skin, she painted a cruciform shape of pale wax along his shoulder blades and back, like a broad-hilted sword, like a dragonfly. A tremor from him made the wings beat. God, it looked lovely. She could see the completed shape even before she finished making it. She reached for another candle, held this one even higher so the drops were cooler as they fell, and took longer, making him wait. A familiar feeling took hold of Anne Marie. She was in control, but only because what she did fit within a larger pattern; she was summoning and channeling power more than holding it herself. This was a ritual.

She always understood magic better than sex. Always liked it better, too. If she was going to put herself to extremes, it may as well be in service to a higher cause. An ecstasy of the spirit rather than flesh.

When she’d decided to end her time as a virgin occultist—if she ever did—she’d made her boyfriend of the time read a battered library copy of a tantric handbook. Complete orientalist crap, but for a few minutes she thought she’d found something while he knelt between her legs massaging her clit with meditational intensity. Something about the memory, combined with the way John’s body shuddered in her lap as another wax bead rolled from his vertebrae towards his ribs, made Anne Marie’s groin twinge in a way it hadn’t for months.

Maybe she should reconsider getting into tantra. After all, she had a willing partner right here—John just didn’t run out of good things to say about that girl he’d met at some class in San Francisco. A girl with an improbable name, something with a Z she thought, and a penchant for fishnets. He claimed to have worn the imprints of those stockings on his ears for a week afterward—and that brought not a twinge but a sudden flush of heat throughout her lower half.

At the time Anne Marie had thought his incessant reminiscence just annoyed her. Now she wondered if she’d confused irritation with arousal—or jealousy.

She’d never considered herself a jealous woman, but there it was. Who, after all, was currently staking a claim on John’s body with half a dozen ritual tapers?

He whispered another of those curse-moans. Except she realized it wasn’t profanity. “Annie—”

“Right here, John.” Her voice sounded fragile. She ran a finger up along his tattoo-marked ribs, catching stray drops of wax and rolling them away. “Should I stop?”

His forehead hit the floorboards as he made a growling sound. It was more desperate than aggressive, and it vibrated through his chest. “God, no.”

“Oh, you want more, then?” She changed the angle of her tracing finger so that the nail left a stripe of red in its wake, red darker than the heat flush already staining his back.

Another groan. She knew that for a yes.

Funny. The last reason she might have for picking up the candle—for burning him—had been a warning. _Someone could get hurt if we go on like this._ In retrospect she felt bad for that, for adding such an element of risk to one of John Constantine’s rare healthy impulses. And it did seem like a healthy impulse—he’d turned his face so she could see his profile, and as he lay there in her arms, under her ministrations, he looked simply blissed out.

She bent double to press a kiss to the back of his neck, the exact same spot a mother cat would grasp a kitten with her teeth. She couldn’t resist letting her tongue flick out, catching a taste of salt-crisp sweat. There was no describing the way he said her name then: question and assent and prayer and, if she didn’t flatter herself too much, a hymn of praise. She hadn’t felt so viscerally wanted…ever. And that sent another flush through her, a feeling like locked gates opening. Sound the trumpets.

Despite the sarcastic thought, she liked the sensation immensely. Liked being capable of feeling it. Liked knowing that John would positively love it, if he knew she felt that way, if he knew he had caused it. Telling him— _you’re making me wet_ —no, something more than that, and harder to explain— _you’re making me more than okay with the thought of shagging both our brains out_ —well, that wasn’t going to work, but she could communicate something similar with just the touch of her hands. With her nails raking, scratching hardened wax in strips and flakes from his shoulder blades and spine. His back arched at the sensation. She was aggressive, merciless, and with a twist of her thumbs she took advantage of the sensitive area just along his trapezius that she’d discovered once in the midst of a purely friendly, almost maternal back massage. She gripped his shoulders and pulled them back in the familiar gesture she’d always used to correct his posture, then let her fingers drag inward.

As she looks back on it years later, she remembers one last possible motive, deeply buried: one final good intention. Even occultists weren’t immune to magical thinking. In the midst of her private ritual, as she let wax drop and pool and harden over his skin, she imagined it filling in, smoothing out older marks—some he’d already covered with the tattoos, others had healed without leaving a scar, but she could still see them, still knew they were there. Round burn marks, edged with black ash. Deeper marks in places she couldn’t see, couldn’t touch, wasn’t sure she could even imagine being scarred in. Anne Marie at that time was lucky; she might live a bit too absorbed in affairs of the soul, but at least her soul was whole.

Maybe her privileged position was the source of such incredible presumption, trying to heal with nothing but sensuality and hot wax. Then again, she’d been trying to heal him for longer than that, using stranger materials. Grimoires, legends both sacred and urban, chants to resurrected gods and lesser spirits and other entities entirely. He’d been trying to heal himself, or heal a hurt in the world he seemed to think he’d caused. All of this one long baptism by fire, trying to burn out an original sin.

Speaking of burns, she feels one ache now, a cruciform shape on her breast throbbing in time with her pulse. It’s a reminder, a spur to push deeper, try harder. To unfold herself intimately, and thread a hook through that tender private place and pull—

In her room, she pulled open the drawer without a word of explanation, feeling blood rush to her face with a colder touch than the sexy flush that had filled her earlier. Yes, she’d been downright turned on to have John ask if he could join her in bed. After she’d scraped the last petal of wax from the base of his spine, sending his hips grinding into her thigh beneath him, and the touch of something rather long and very hard beneath denim had made her freeze.

“Don’t mean to—” he’d started, but she patted him in a manner both proprietary and comforting.

“It’s fine, John.”

“In that case—” His voice dropped, soft and wet as he made the invitation—“we could get the rest of these clothes off. And maybe we could drop my bare arse on some sheets?”

She laughed. “I guess I _don’t_ want you to get splinters.”

He gave her a look that suggested he really hadn’t been sure. And he really might not have minded, if that was what she wanted.

As she watched his face when he knelt, looking into the drawer, she hoped for a similar expression. And feared something a bit worse. How fucked-up would it be, if the frigid virgin ice-princess moon-priestess half- _nun_ (as an ex had thrown over the shoulder just before the door slammed, thinking to hit a raw spot connected to the treatise on Aquinas Anne Marie had brought to a cool bed once too often)—if _she_ turned out freaky enough to freak out John “up for most things, love” Constantine?

He sat back on his heels, smiling. “Regular box of tricks here, Annie.”

“I’ve, um…” Her nails scratched the inside of her forearm hard enough to hurt. “Picked them up over the years.” More toys for every lover, with each new attempt. “A few here, a few—”

John reached in, started rummaging. Brought out a bottle of berry-flavored lube with a flick of the wrist, like a stage magician mastering prestidigitation. His frank gleefulness at finding it wasn’t a surprise, but it was reassuring.

Still, it was getting nerve-wracking to just stand over him while he searched. “Looking for anything in particular?” she asked.

“Don’t guess you have a pair of handcuffs in here?”

Her face heated another few degrees. “I’m afraid not.”

He looked up at her with a small smile, and she realized he wasn’t teasing her. “That’s all right.”

She risked her own tentative smile. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Is this—”

She couldn’t see what _this_ was, but another thought had just struck her; another disappointment she felt less certain they could weather. Better to get it over with as soon as possible. If it meant she had to show him out of her flat before the evening properly got started—just as well.

“I don’t have condoms, either,” she said carefully.

John’s expression actually brightened. “No problem!” And, positively aglow with pride, he reached for his pocket. By the way his hand brushed his bare side, it seemed to be a pocket in his leather jacket, which they’d left back with the candles, but that didn’t cause a flutter in his grin.

Anne Marie felt a cold sinking sensation in her gut, ice over the embers that had just started to kindle. Too dull to be panic, though not by much. “No, that’s all right. In fact—I’m not certain—I don't, and er, do you, maybe—”  

“Hey.” He was standing; one hand reached tentatively for her arm. “It’s all right, yeah? Nothing to be sorry for.”

She didn’t want to want to be comforted, but she did, and she was, and that made her feel more vulnerable than she could stand. “Thanks.” She owed him a counteroffer, she thought, or at least an explanation. She owed herself one, rather than standing here as this limp, hysterical creature saying nothing but _No, no, no_.

“I could go down on you,” he offered.

It was a beautiful offer. He licked his lips as he made it. She wanted to want that, she wanted… Wanted to kiss him. So she did, buying herself a few seconds’ thought. She liked kissing him, liked his mouth—but she liked it where she could kiss it _back_ , and the thought of his lips, his tongue moving silkily elsewhere made the cold panic churn again. It might feel good; he’d try to make it good, and knowing John he’d probably succeed, but she didn’t want to try tonight.

But the bed was beckoning behind him, and she _did_ like the thought of pushing him back on it, rolling on beside him, digging her hands into his bare hips, feeling her naked skin on clean sheets.

“You can go get the condoms,” she said. “In case.” A full sentence. In case.

He obeyed her, buying a few moments alone. Time enough to think of one last trick. To decide it was worth trying, even worth rejecting. To pull it out from its box in the very bottom of the drawer, to let it rest in her lap where he’d see it as soon as he came in. She was beginning to hope he wouldn’t laugh at her, at least. From someone else he might even agree to try this—but from her, with her it was too ridiculous; she was barely even sexual, much less… _perverse_.

He came in without the jacket, his bare skin lit a little harshly by her reading lamp, a wad of two or three condom packets in his hand. Surely he didn’t expect to use them all.

He was smiling as he looked down at her. As he saw the thing in her lap. He kept smiling, although his eyes may have gotten a little wider.

Anne Marie sucked her lower lip.

“Well,” John said at last. “At first I thought you were the no-penetration kind entirely, but now…this is a hint, yeah?”

“Um, an offer.”

“Something you’re comfortable with?” For an instant he studied her with nearly clinical concern. Then she blinked, and had to reevaluate the intensity of his stare. He wanted to be sure of her, yes, but he also… licked his lips, and with what felt like a booted kick to her chest Anne Marie realized she probably wouldn’t be showing him the door after all.  

She picked up the strap-on and turned it over in her hands. “It’s what I’d like tonight.”

He bent in front of her to pick up the lube, which he tossed on the bed. “That’s a great box of tricks you have.” The condoms joined the lube—as they landed, she realized they were several different sizes. Which meant he may have expected…

She shrugged, dropped her head as if to hide her spreading smile. “This one’s from an old girlfriend, actually.” Back when she’d tested to see if she liked girls any better. She didn’t like them any worse, if it was the right girl. In the end it wasn’t sex that broke them up, although as always after a relationship turned to smoke Anne Marie had wondered if she could have wielded this little black silicone member a little better and stretched the good times out another few weeks, a month.

And it was a _little_ member—a modest six inches at best, for two women without any particular complex or matter to prove in that department. In moments of high confidence Anne Marie had even figured she’d be willing to try this one inside herself. Not that she ever had. If one were to get highly technical, she guessed she was still a virgin. 

It wasn’t a technicality she gave a shit about. And as she dismissed it, coming out of her reverie, she saw John sitting at the edge of her bed, fingers waiting patiently at his belt buckle. As if for permission.

Oh, God. He was going to let her fuck him and he was waiting for her permission. It was the headiest thing she’d ever witnessed. Anne Marie’s breath went short, her head spinning for an embarrassingly long moment before she got herself to nod.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Let me see you.”

His hip-wriggle to get out of those tight jeans was actually pretty cute. And when he caught her watching, he blushed a little. It was as if her inexperience were catching, and maybe that was it—he knew how rare this was for her. Maybe it made him value it. Respect it.

His boxers, not much less skintight than the jeans, were filled out with something a little more than respect. He let them fall to his ankles and stepped out of them. Anne Marie was no judge at all of size—she didn’t care enough—but she did make herself admire it, because he’d probably like to see her liking him. Then her eyes swept up, admiring how his torso tapered to his waist, admiring what wasn’t wiry strength so much as scrawny pluckishness, though she thought he might be building up. His hair was still fluffed from when she’d pulled the T-shirt over it.

“You’re not bad,” she said, and let her hungry smile say the rest.

“You neither.” His right hand twitched, fingers spreading from the raised palm, and she recognized the invitation for what it was. He’d tried to catch it before seeming to give her an order, and she wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t want to pressure her skittish self or because he liked having her in control, too.

She was in an experimental mood. As she got up and started across the room, she pulled her sweater over her head. Her bra underneath was supportive, that was the best to be said for it, but she didn’t think either of them minded and it went away quick, anyway.

John’s hands quivered again as she tossed the drab thing aside. Encouraging, very encouraging.

“All right,” she said, bracing her own fingers at her hips. They nudged the waistline of her skirt, but she didn’t pull it down just yet. “John. Hands behind your back.”

He jumped to attention in every way possible. She’d never thought the sight of a cock bobbing could be so gratifying. But best of all was the way he came to rest, feet slightly spread, elbows bent as his hands clasped each other at the base of his spine. Anne Marie walked around him to see. Wrists crossed, very nice. Inasmuch as she was any judge, his arse was worth checking out, too.

He strained to watch her from the corners of his eyes, and she let him go by glimpses and the sound of her skirt sliding down her legs to the floor. She left her panties on, though—tight-fitting elastic, they were the next best thing to nothing, and she liked them better than nothing when she bucked the strap-on’s harness on top.

She had to walk back to the drawer to get that, and didn’t mind giving John a bit of a show as she did. Not that she was being theatrical; she had no native talent for this sort of thing. But he seemed to enjoy watching her do what she was doing.

“Go ahead,” she said once she was outfitted. “Sit down—no, wait. Kneel. Center of the bed. Give me room to join you.”

He obeyed as she approached. Her nipples were peaks, almost achingly hard, which ordinarily might be attributed to the chill in this old flat, but tonight the air felt too warm to explain it. Her clit was hard, too, or at least she assumed that was why the rub of the strap-on’s base with each step was sending such electric jolts between her legs.

John was keeping his balance on his knees without the use of his hands. But as Anne Marie sat beside him on the mattress, she felt a little odd being the only person with the freedom to reach around.

“I’d like your help, actually,” she said. “Let’s get this ready for you.” She stroked her fingertip down the black silicone.

His hands reappeared, sorting with expert quickness through the condom selection. He picked what she could only guess was the smallest size and set it near her thigh, then opened the bottle of lube.

Anne Marie considered asking him just why he carried condoms in so many sizes—the middle one, she thought, would fit him pretty well—but upon reflection the answer seemed obvious. And while she was in some ways glad to have a partner with, well, experience, she didn’t really want to contemplate it while getting ready to shag him.

“You can put it on,” she said, and held very still as he rolled the condom over the head of the strap-on.

“Okay?” he asked. His fingers were  stroking busily, smoothing latex over silicone. Their rhythm traveled right down to her clit.

“Yeah,” she said. “Really…nice.”

He smiled at her, and then he’d ducked his head, and she felt his hot breath in a gust through her thin panties and heard the slick sound of his mouth closing over her freshly donned cock. Her clit ground against it, thrusting deep past his open lips, and she reached for his shoulders with a gasp.

He really _could_ go down on her.

Her hands went from his shoulders to his hair, grasping it and pulling rhythmically in time with his sucking. If ever there was a time for dirty talk, for real filthy language, this was it; and the fact that Anne Marie let it by with only a few throaty sighs showed how poorly she was cut out for filth.

The salacious hum John made as he brought his head up would have to do for both of them. He didn’t need words to communicate—and she’d swear her soul he meant it—that he wanted her inside of him right the hell now.

Some of the lube had spilled over the sheets, squeezed out in their distraction, and Anne Marie spilled more as she slathered it over the strap-on. She used the rest of the bottle; might as well, she’d had no other reason to for nearly a year—did this have an expiration date?—and they could always—John watched her, eagerly—always get more, later.

 _Later_ was a bit too heady to think on. She pulled John in for a kiss, nipped at his lips carefully, hesitantly, as if at forbidden fruit.

“When you’re ready,” she said. “I think—you really know better when it comes to this, so just tell me if—”

He swallowed any more of her uncertainty. Thank God. She fell back on the pillows, waited as he shook out the last of the lube onto his fingers, as those fingers reached—somewhere she couldn’t see—somewhere that made his breath catch in a throaty sound of his own. Her pulse throbbed, swelled. At last she felt his thighs straddling hers, felt the strap-on’s base against her sex as he grasped it, angled it—sank down on it, a powerful sensation of weight and pressure all bearing on her, _right_ where she wanted, needed it.

Subtlety did nothing for her, but this—and then she realized John had put his hands behind his back again, giving a perfect illusion of him getting fucked with his wrists bound, and yes, she was perverse, completely perverse. Because this worked.  She rolled her hips, pushing up into him, and it was hard to tell but his eyes may have rolled back.

In a way she was glad it wasn’t her flesh really buried in him, just a length of silicone; she was glad of the barriers of harness and cotton between her skin and his. It would have been too close, too intense otherwise. Right now she could keep in control, or at least pretend to be. She thrust harder, letting the strap-on rub against her clit, and it looked like she’d found the sweet spot for him, too, going by his whole-body shudder. 

“Oh, Daddy,” he crooned, in exactly the syrupy sort of voice she’d expect from him if he was fucking around with her hard, or if he really, truly meant it. Years later she still isn’t sure how to process that. At the time, she did _not_ try to figure out which, but she did seek to mimic the angle with another, slower stroke.

“That’s good, then?” she asked, and came out sounding pleasingly nonchalant.

“Yes-s.” His breath hissed through clenched teeth as she moved again, and he moved with her. He’d managed to keep his hands to himself all this time, but now he failed—reaching out at another thrust, catching his weight on his palms just before he sprawled over her. Anne Marie forgave it, too wrapped up in the push-pull movement of her hips to worry about discipline. And it was nice, gentle, as he touched her stomach lightly, let his fingers circle her navel, then run up to cup one breast. Warm and soft and strong and nice.

She stopped thinking, and just performed, and it was like damned magic. She was caught up in a power that was more than herself, more even than herself plus John, and the only point of it was to make her feel so good it put her out of her mind. Either she’d finally found out the trick of sex, or—more likely—John really knew how to ride a cock. _Ah, yes._ The weight of him was transfixed right against her clit, and it was quite possibly the best thing she’d ever felt, her mind overtaken by a stream of _yes, yes, yes_. At last. A _yes_ with each thrust, and each of them coming faster. She was barely breathing in her attempt to keep up with it. Her spine lifted off the mattress, propelled as if by the crack of a whip.

Anne Marie came with what felt like a shriek but was soundless, airless—her gasp at the tail end of her shuddering climax was louder, and the rush of oxygen felt like a sweet rebirth after a sweeter death. So that was what they meant about _la petite mort_. Not bad. She realized she was grinning like a loon, her head fallen back on the pillows but her hips still working, moving with John.

And it must have been good for him, too, because when he came a few sharp thrusts later he did it hard enough to hit her on the chin. It was a surprise, a hot splatter which made her wonder what the melted wax had felt when she poured it over him. She laughed, mostly to show that it was all right. Better than all right. She’d made him do that. And God, was she proud.

They separated and began, in companionable silence, to clean up. She blotted with tissues from the nightstand. The strap-on found a home on the floor, and John threw the condom away. Anne Marie heard him shuffling around the room, but her eyelids were too blissfully heavy to see what he was doing. She figured it out when he sank back on the mattress and an arm went lightly, gently around her waist. She let him hold her, even settled back into his embrace, and then she discovered he’d put his pants back on, as if to match her panties.

She squeezed his hand in hers. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, love,” he said, in a somewhat fuzzy way that suggested he wasn’t sure what specifically he was being thanked for. That was all right. She was grateful for all of it.

It wasn’t that late—not yet sunset when they’d gone to the bedroom, and, she thought, newly dark when she woke up in it alone. The sheets beside her were still warm. But the clothes were gone from her floor, the toy and harness stashed in the nightstand drawer, the lube bottle sitting right at the base of the trash bin as if an honest effort had just missed landing it in. How like John to run out, she thought.

She cleaned up the remains of the ritual in the other room, leaving some wax on the floorboards to be scrubbed up in the morning. But the initial burst of restlessness that took hold of her, however delightful and productive, wasn’t lasting. On her way back to bed, she stopped at the window and peered out.

Light spilled from the bar down the street, and with it a knot of shadows, patrons stumbling out to begin what looked to be precarious journeys home. Anne Marie watched them idly.

Her head was full of starshine. She’d never considered herself a romantic before, but that was the only explanation for what she thought she saw. A familiar figure, with a familiar leather jacket and familiar fluffed blond hair, striding with an oh-too-familiar arm slung around the shoulders of a laughing young woman with amazing dyed-blue hair.

Anne Marie wouldn’t have hallucinated that hair. And she wouldn’t have _admired_ it if this was just a sick twist of her imagination, or a nightmare, or anything less than real. If watching John Constantine walk out with another girl while her bed grew cold in the other room were not indeed a fact.

She strode back to that bed, threw one pillow at the wall, and punched the other hard enough to spill feathers. She fell asleep with her face buried on its flattened surface, a little tacky with snot and salt.

She _had_ thought John respected the people he slept with. He gave every indication of it. Which left her with a few conclusions. She didn’t count as _people_. What they did hadn’t counted as _sleeping together_. Maybe John had a very peculiar definition of respect.

That last was probably true, but she couldn’t rest certain that it was the whole truth. That he was the asshole and she just an innocent victim. Nothing else in their relationship had ever fallen out like that—she was the temptress, the seducer, the mistress of the dark arts and he her adoring acolyte. He wouldn’t suddenly stop adoring her if she hadn’t given him a reason. Like showing him just what a dog’s breakfast she served when it came to sex.

She thought she’d been performing some sort of healing ritual, on him or on herself, and instead—she couldn’t even blame him. She knew sex was one of the few, if not the only areas where he _needed_ and would accept anything healthy and good. Certainly, he had an ungodly ego, but he wasn’t some sort of sex addict, just an ordinary human being, hungry for intimacy. Ordinary, unlike her. He’d reached out to her—or worse, she’d reached out to him, as it were on false pretenses—and as a port in the storm, she’d proven hopelessly inadequate.

A part of her was almost glad he left when he did, that it ended as it had. A part that doubted she could have carried on even the imitation of a normal relationship for long.

Another part was glad John showed his true colors before the séance at Newcastle. It meant she had less to lose.

He’d had the gall to ask her for a second round the week after. Unsure if he was mocking her or desperately lonely or perhaps just a glutton for punishment, she’d kept her “No, thanks,” quick and calm. Unambiguous, and perhaps she even seemed unaffected, untouched. She thought a moment of disappointment crossed his face. It looked sincere. But by then it was too late.

She’d like to break out of this memory now, but she can’t. She’s sucked into this feeling, this poisonous ache of betrayal, as if it were a drain. She knows where it’s pulling her and is glad. It’s working.

The sex had been something, but this hurt is the most intimate tie of all.

Among her regrets, she would have liked to have kissed him one more time. Even now, the thought of seeing him makes something hitch in her chest—she’s never lusted after him, and isn’t about to start now, but she does feel the most exasperating desire to kiss him again.

Memory builds on memory, or digs into memory, and from thinking of how the evening ended she moves on to thinking of how it began. Of kissing him. She’d gone for his cheek, a big-sister peck to say goodnight, but then at the last moment he’d played the oldest trick, turning his head so that their lips met. It could have been passed off as an awkward mistake if she challenged it; she suspects that was the motive. Except for that first misleading move he had been truly gentle, as if afraid of her or afraid of her being afraid of him. Or both. She’d been aggressive in return, catching his face between her gloved hands and pulling him down to her mouth. Then she’d stripped off the gloves so she could feel him with her bare palms and fingers. She’d found the gloves folded on the table by her door the next morning.

At the memory of tenderness and last things, she thinks, incongruously, of kissing Martina’s cheek, the warmth of her beneath her lips, of her laughter, of that final touch before leaving her. Anne Marie’s heart aches. It feels vile of her to have offered that kiss. This guilt at least is irrational. It was hardly the kiss of Judas; only someone as caught up in a savior complex as Anne Marie Flynn (or perhaps a few others) would think that failing to protect the innocent is as bad as a betrayal.

She drops out of her flesh exactly as she ought to, with a prayer.

_In what I have done and what I have failed to do:_

_Opere et omission: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa._

Her soul isn’t whole anymore, if it ever was. And for that she has no one to blame but herself. For what she has done. For what she hasn’t. But she is doing something now.

As she passes—away—elsewhere—her soul seeking, and finding, John Constantine, she casts one last prayer out, and with it asks the intercession of Saint Jude. The patron of lost causes, of last resorts. A saint who could only be confused with Judas Iscariot by an infelicity of naming, a cynical cosmic joke.

She wonders who, if anyone, would laugh at it.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks go out to Thepurposeofplaying, for Brit-Picking, and to Adrian, for daring me to add the "Daddy" line.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Hymn to Diana](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3224666) by [Sapphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy)




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